Messages - HessianObscura

Descendants of the kingdoms of Bactria are still around today, most famously, the Dards such as the Kalash. The Punjabi people also possess significant Greek ancestry from these times and northern Indian people in general (particularly the upper-castes) still exhibit morphological traits that do not betray the Indo-Iranian and Scythian heritages, with minimal disturbance from the aboriginal adivashi Indian tribes through the millenia (despite more often than not sharing their pigmentation due to obvious reasons other than all out caste and race-mixing).

Note that the Rig Vedic Aryans were broadly of the same racial stock as the Persians who founded the Achaemenid empire, which eventually fell to Alexander en route to the Indian sub-continent, and the Alexandrians would have seen post-Vedic Aryan kings such as Chandragupta Maurya in this related manner, albeit bearing a different culture. It was infact ancient India which stopped the expansion of the Macedonian empire. The ancient Vedic and post-Vedic Indians were formidable warriors and imperialists, far removed from today's people broken by a millenia of subjugation and forgetting the ancient doctrines of eugenic science, though tribes such as the aforementioned Punjabi's retain this Kshatriya spirit.

600 - 300 BC was one of the most fascinating times in the whole of human history.

HessianObscura - Isn't Vaishnavism/ISKON a Dvaita or dualistic school and not Advaita as you have stated? The personality cult of Krishna created by these seems to fit in with the idea of dualism.

The Bhagavata Purana - the key text of Vaishnavism - asserts the supremacy of Brahman and the realisation of Brahman/Atman as liberation. Vaishnava groups after the formalisation of Dvaita philosophy by the likes of Madhvacharya emphasise the Atman as Jiva, an individual soul seperate from the Absolute.

Is there an edition/translation of the Bhagavad-Gita you would recommend in particular?

Or even better, could you recommend which of these on Amazon are the better choices?

Edwin Arnold's translation remains the most epic and theatrical rendering of the Gita without sacrificing metaphysical elucidation.

Eknath Easwaran seeks philosophical clarity in his translation, which makes it read like other deep chapter's of the Mahabharata that explore the inner and outer worlds.

Prabhavananda and Isherwood's translation is the simplest, most accesible translation, guiding the reader through key concepts of Vedanta which find their source in texts such as the Gita and Upanishads.

The most popular translation of the Gita is Prabhupada's translation of the Gita 'As It Is' and is probably the least useful version of the Gita as it does not allow the reader to think for himself during any stage of the text. The purports are constant attempts to force the submissive, dualistic Hare Krishna worldview, based on erroneous interpretations and mistranslated words. For example, Brahman is subordinated to the concept of Krishna as 'The Supreme Personality of Godhead', whenever a term like 'Bhagavan' (or even 'Brahman' itself) appears. In this context, the ancient Sanskrit texts define 'Bhagavan' as a monistic principle in accordance with the Vedic knowledge of the principal Upanishads. These nondualistic (Advaita) texts, like the Bhagavata Purana are central to the sect of Vaishnavism which all Krishna-cults are manifestations of. However, as the Hindu empire was being weakened through the Medieval times, the popularity of purely devotional (the lowest of the four Yoga's), personality-fixated Vaishnava cults grew (and actually safeguarded Hinduism against the dominion of Islam for quite some time), of which specifically the Hare Krishna/ISKON movement descends. In the Advaita Vedanta tradition according to Sri Sankaracharya, the idea of Brahman as some kind of supreme personality only arises if perception still clings to unreality and transient appearances. This perception of Brahman as 'Iswara' - a personal God, is valid for those some way from the peak of Enlightenment, but is not the highest principle of reality - the Parabrahman. The highest Brahman is reality without attributes, devoid of any personal/'human' qualities which the ego projects onto the extent of the world that he can conceive.

An important issue to consider is the distinction between old DLA and Deathmetal.Org articles. Obviously, there is a stylistic and structural difference between the two site's approaches so for the sake of a consistent review layout, the distinction must be highlighted in some way and the two archives kept distinct. I think this distinction also applies to the concept of top tier and bands of secondary, tertiary, etc. importance and how the most elite bands should be prioritised. A caste-system of indices may prove favourable here.

Assuming a Wordpress solution, for content such as reviews migrating from ANUS to DM.Org to be integrated into the structure on the basis that it can be dynamically categorised and archived as a Wordpress 'post', then the layout of the 'band page' ought to alter considerably. Each band page (within a similar 'Alpha' page) could potentially aggregate reviews/posts that fall under the band and highlight them in relation to being DLA or Deathmetal.Org material. Less important bands would not require a band page so their reviews would exist independently, and be indexed similarly to the current 'Deathmetal.Org' reviews page. A band page would need to be filled out with short introductory text a la the DLA Burzum page, making it closer to a Metal Archives band entry. All future reviews would be Deathmetal.Org 'branded' by default, naturally.

In this sense, Wordpress can be a great aid, but then you cannot ignore the PHP structure as much. As you can see, a new layout is only one piece of this puzzle.

Also, I wouldn't be despondent about lack of resolution, because this is all part of the planning and the ability for any potential contributors to affect change is less remote than has been expressed. To my knowledge, the primary admins of these noble sites have contemplated this idea with enthusiasm for some time.

"This idea" being the utilization of MODX? I see your point concerning Wordpress. Although, with modification, I do not see why handling large pages (sans videos) is a speed problem. Gzip compression, elegant CSS/XHHTML, less widgets (you really don't need them to be honest), and frugality with images should provide plenty of performance for DM.org. I was under the impression that a lite Wordpress installation is not heavy.

We can stay away from blogging mostly, so the archive and its complexities can be circumvented.

The idea of centralisation. You can easily not call in elements on Wordpress and have a basic site; the issue isn't about speed/performance of site but simply an easier way to implement a traditional, encyclopaedic website, while granting access for non-admin-types to contribute wherever necessary. A Wordpress-based site can and will work, but it may show signs of not being DLA-style friendly, although this is sort of based on the idea that like Deathmetal.Org, reviews would be 'posts' and articles will be 'pages'. This can obviously be circumvented, too, so it's probably not a huge concern, but it's good to be aware of alternatives.

Concerning development, all sites should be Wordpress; so all development revolves around Wordpress's structure.

My experience with Wordpress has been largely positive. It has a user-friendly and clean back-end for encouraging collaborative efforts across a range of user abilities. It has made 'blogging' meta to the extent that sites such as Deathmetal.Org don't blog but the 'Loop' easily facilitates our updates and so we have no problems working with it. However, working on information-heavy sites that have a considerably deeper site-map has shown where Wordpress falls short and that is effective layout and categorisation of archived information because of its PHP source. Yes, a lot of it can be painfully worked around, but the reliance of Wordpress on PHP to handle nearly every element of what is displayed to the user - because it is still effectively a blogging engine - places a real constraint on effective layout. The bottom line is, most pages of the centralised site are going to be completely independent of any 'blog feed' if there is to be one, so I would recommend using a proper content management system which can seperate HTML from PHP, but still encourage contribution from non-admins as we currently have set up on both Deathmetal.Org and Hessian.Org. MODx is an awesome CMS that would serve the new site very well.

Of course, it is all achievable within Wordpress as well, but I do not think it is a long-term solution, which is the only solution when talking about such a large re-assignment of content.

Also, I wouldn't be despondent about lack of resolution, because this is all part of the planning and the ability for any potential contributors to affect change is less remote than has been expressed. To my knowledge, the primary admins of these noble sites have contemplated this idea with enthusiasm for some time.

Were you the designer of the old dm.org? I ask, because I would like to design for the new dm.org. However, if you or someone else is doing so, then I won't intervene.

No, but I am now a developer by profession and would be able to devote significant time to this project between other work as it requires a similar mindset. At this stage, however, I would not discourage you to create mock-ups if you have ideas to share regarding layout. Though the work requires a singular, overriding focus, collaboration does not often yield negative results in this area, especially where graphical elements are minimal.

As far as colour schemes go, this forum's variety of black and shaded hues and subtly-patterned backgrounds for divs and lighter font-colours works very well in terms of both readability (proven by default) and dark aesthetic. It would provide an excellent basis for a more 'professional' and minimal design while retaining familiarity with ANUS if not by association with the forum colours, then the old black DLA. The sterile and generic-metal look of the DLA-overhaul draft that was created some years ago must be avoided at all costs, though.

I agree. What of DM.org's current banner? It will be difficult to design a new theme and retain it altogether.

The logo is horrific and beautiful, representing better than any web-friendly typography the true nature of the website. For accessibility purposes, the logo can be supplemented with a text subtitle as the site currently does. It doesn't look bad set against a plain black background, either.

As far as colour schemes go, this forum's variety of black and shaded hues and subtly-patterned backgrounds for divs and lighter font-colours works very well in terms of both readability (proven by default) and dark aesthetic. It would provide an excellent basis for a more 'professional' and minimal design while retaining familiarity with ANUS if not by association with the forum colours, then the old black DLA. The sterile and generic-metal look of the DLA-overhaul draft that was created some years ago must be avoided at all costs, though.

Handling a migration of Hessian and ANUS content over to deathmetal.org is definitely achievable from our side. We have all the CSS, XHTML and JS skills necessary to implement an overhaul and extra manpower would aid progress (I assume).

I also think any issues regarding Javascript can be avoided through purely functional rather than aesthetic application. Infact, when considering the task of potentially volunteering to overhaul the DLA and addressing the talked-about issues of systemisation and accessibility of content in the process, the potential that Javascript has to make light-work of heavy information seems too great to pass by.

If new site were to be created or deathmetal.org updated, I think the main thing that should be kept is the simplicity of ANUS. (Look at wikipedia/facebook/google - black text on white background with a few pictures - the best sites are the ones that trim the fat) While it's hard to navigate sometimes and things could be better organized, the less things to distract from the actual content the better. That means no flash.

This is why I advocate the use of Javascript as a functional solution which can retain the minimalism of ANUS while eliminating the poor layout and clutter.

For example, the DLA band list could be sorted using an alphabetical jQuery navigation plug-in which compacts the list into an easily digestable structure. There's no need to overload the page with a lot of information; a script like this will manage the content for optimum user-interaction.

Another example, possibly for archiving older material, is a server-side file tree. There are many such scripts and immeasurably more possibilities; the layout will be the organic factor, proceeding from what needs to be prioritised and what needs to be implemented in order to reflect this hierachy in the design.

DLA and Hessian.org (including Hessian UK) are great, but DeathMetal.org is a more viable source in that it has the capacity to generate more traffic. Hessian's stuff is easy to add and advocate at DM.org, and DLA's articles and archives can be moved as well. This would require a RESTRUCTURING (not a simple facelift) of DeathMetal.org, but given that we collaborate on the best means of organization, this can be done.

Good. All metal content to deathmetal.org.

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Prozak is not the only coder/designer, and we could use a development team. Personally, I am competent with XHTML, CSS, GIMP, and CMS (notably Wordpress, because it is actually good), and I know a few small, useful php scripts. Javascript and Flash are annoying. Mobile devices can easily access static pages, so mobile themes never have to be designed.

Good. Summary: we need a development team. No Flash or Silverlight. Support mobile.

Objection: javascript can be useful if not overdone.

Handling a migration of Hessian and ANUS content over to deathmetal.org is definitely achievable from our side. We have all the CSS, XHTML and JS skills necessary to implement an overhaul and extra manpower would aid progress (I assume).

I also think any issues regarding Javascript can be avoided through purely functional rather than aesthetic application. Infact, when considering the task of potentially volunteering to overhaul the DLA and addressing the talked-about issues of systemisation and accessibility of content in the process, the potential that Javascript has to make light-work of heavy information seems too great to pass by.

Developing a landing page with a well-mapped out and clean user interface using Javascript to keep [/]everything[/i] (ie. having as few sub-directories as possible) fairly contained within reasonable page dimensions could be a great solution, while retaining all links and text in a narrowed format for mobile devices that don't support JS. Behind that, since Deathmetal.Org is based on Wordpress, everything can be sorted as we do into categories as they are translated into Wordpress pages, so there is that added order and context behind the new site-map.

I have re-designed Hessian.org to emphasise the zine and by extension to aid readability of the content. Bug reporting is appreciated as the site uses a reasonable amount of Javascript and has not been tested on lower resolutions or older web browsers.

Listen carefully to the tracks I mentioned (Key to the Gate, En ring til aa herske, Lost Wisdom, and Snu mikrokosmos tegn) - the 1 4 3 turns up in each of them, in E or C, as I mentioned. Lost Wisdom has it at 2:50, En ring til aa herske has it from 2:28 to 3:17 and from 5:53 onwards. Generally, it seems to be a "culmination" motif, as Key to the Gate, En ring til aa herske, and Lost Wisdom have it either at/towards the end or under solos.

At the most basic level, it shows the interchangability of parts in Burzum's music during his most productive period of composing. The iterations of this 'motif' through the early discography of Burzum reaches it's most transcendental expression in 'Det Som Engang Var' from 'Hvis...' so it seems likely that Varg was consciously or unconsciously recycling this crescendo until he couldn't apply it to any greater effect. 'Det Som Engang Var' and 'Lost Wisdom' are the most significant and similar manifestations of it, and it's interesting to note that 'Lost Wisdom' was chronologically the first appearance while 'Det Som...' was the last, and inbetween we find smaller variations of the idea populating his compositions (see here).

It's not unusual to find loan-riffs and interchangable parts in the early history of bands, such as the time when the entities of Havohej, Incantation and Profanatica were more closely aligned. More interestingly, comparing Enslaved's 'Hordane's Land' EP to the full-length 'Vikingligr Veldi' yields many structural and phrasal similarities to the extent that a lot of the latter only nominally contains entirely new songs. A few examples include the eagle-like final solos of both 'Slaget I Skogen Bortenfor' and 'Midgard's Eldar', the what can only be described as 'battle riffs' of 'Slaget I Skogen Bortenfor' and 'Heimdallr', both the opening riffs and piano integration of 'Balfar' and 'Norvegr'.